The culture editor of America magazine contends that people today are “a little lost.”

“I think we’re a little lost. Everyone seems to be searching for meaning in their lives,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit from the New England Province. “In an increasingly secular age, people are struggling even to name what they’re looking for. They have the sense there has got to be more to life than this.”

The answer, in a word, he said, is God. “In the past people have identified the yearning for something more as a desire for God. These days, people are trying to fill it up with money status, possessions and things like that to find satisfaction.”

Martin will be one of the keynote speakers at the Catholic Women’s Conference of the Diocese of Springfield on April 21 at Bellamy Middle School, 314 Pendleton Ave., Chicopee.

Bellamy Middle School is handicapped accessible.

The theme for the conference is “Living God’s Grace.”

Martin, known for his books on the saints, Ignatian spirituality and humor, will present one talk on “Between Heaven and Mirth” and another on “The Easiest Prayer Ever: Ignatian Spirituality.”

He said the first talk will focus on how faith ultimately leads to joy, how the saints and spiritual masters used humor in their lives and how laughter is a gift from God.

“It’s part of being spiritually and emotionally healthy person,” said the author of “Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor and Laughter are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life.”

Ignatian spirituality is based on the life and writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, 16th century founder of the Society of Jesus, known also as the Jesuits.

“His spirituality is basically finding God in all things,” Martin said. It is an “accessible spirituality, inviting to many people who want to find God in their everyday lives.”

Also speaking at the conference will be Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Mary Johnson, a Springfield native and researcher on issues related to Catholicism, particularly religious life, young adults and Catholic social teaching. Her topic will be “The Contemplative in You.”

She is a professor of sociology and religious studies at Emmanuel College in Boston. She co-authored the book “Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice.” She is currently doing research at Georgetown University.

Asked to reflect on the current political campaigns from his vantage point as culture editor, Martin said they have devolved into ad hominem personal attacks rather than a discussion of the issues.

“They are more of a referendum on the personalities than the politics. It’s a shame,” he said.

The conference will begin at 8 a.m. with registration and ends after the 3:45 p.m. Mass with the most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.

Eucharistic Adoration will be available from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The conference will include lunch, reconciliation and a Eucharistic procession with Monsignor Christopher D. Connelly, vicar general for the Springfield diocese and rector of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Springfield.

The conference cost includes lunch. It is $30 per person until April 9; $35 per person after April 9 and $15 for women religious (RSVP by April 9).

The registration cost is non-refundable.

For more information, call the Catholic Women’s Conference phone line at (413) 452-0812.

Springfield native researches contemporary Church issues

Springfield native Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Mary Johnson will speak at Catholic Women’s Conference of the Diocese of Springfield on April 21 at Bellamy Middle School, 314 Pendleton Ave., Chicopee. We asked her to share some of her interests. The following is her response:

I am on sabbatical this year from Emmanuel College in Boston, where I am chair of the sociology department and director of the Center for Mission and Spirituality.

I am spending the year as senior fellow at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostoloate (CARA) at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

CARA was founded in 1964 and was inspired by the vision of Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston who, after attending sessions of the Second Vatican Council, felt that the Catholic Church in the U.S. needed a social science research center to further the Church’s internal self-understanding and its knowledge of its external mission.

Today CARA provides research services to Catholic organizations of every type across the U.S. CARA also publishes a quarterly newsletter, the CARA Report, which includes synopses of research findings from various academic and professional studies of Catholicism and American religion. CARA also has a blog entitled, 1964.

The blog lifts up items in the news as well as from social scientific research for thoughtful analysis.

CARA studies provides a birds-eye view of the Catholic Church in the U.S. The issues that are of most interest to me are shifts in religious life and priesthood, and in parish life and Catholic higher education. I am also very interested in differences in behavior and attitude by generation and ethnicity and gender.

For example, we know that the youngest generation of Catholics are the most ethnically diverse of all the adult generations of Catholics. Interestingly, the newest generation of women in religious orders across the U.S. demonstrates great ethnic diversity as well.

Clearly, not all Catholic institutions and organizations are representative of the overall generational and ethnic diversity in the Church.

Research can confirm or disconfirm what we suspect or provide whole new data to challenge our thinking or behavior. An example of the latter is provided in a recent article in America magazine wherein sociologist Sister Patricia Wittberg analyzes data that point to less involvement by young women in Church life.

Women throughout history have always been more involved in the Church than men. The new data demonstrate that womens’ involvement has now declined to the level of mens.’

This will have great implications for the work of the Church. Womens’ talents have obviously always been expended in parish life but they have also been essential to the functioning of many other levels of the Church’s life as well.